Rack



H. GINGELL July 26, 1938.

RACK

Filed Sept. 18. 1936 Patented July 26, 1938 PATENT OFFECE RACK Harry Gingell, Johnson City, N. Y., assignor to United Shoe Machinery Corporation, Paterson, N. J a corporation of New Jersey Application September 18, 1936, Serial No. 101,480

2 Claims.

This invention relates to racks or carriers for articles, and is herein illustrated as embodied in a rack which will support articles of sheet material out of contact with one another and permit 5- them to be gathered up quickly into a bunch or stack, and removed from the rack.

The invention will be described as embodied in a rack or carrier adapted to be suspended from a conveyor and used for the drying of soles of --shoes. In the manufacture of shoes, the soles of which are attached by cement, it is customary to apply to the attaching face of a soleusually to" the margin thereof--a coat of cement consisting of a substance such as pyroxylin'in a volatile solvent, to allow this coating to dry, and to render the pyroxylin sticky just before placing the sole on the bottom of a lasted shoe and pressing it into place. Conveniently the soles may be coated with cement and placed upon the carriers of a conveyor which transports the cementcoated soles to a locality where they are removed from the carriers and stacked, the interval required for the transportation being sufficient to cause the coatings to dry so that, when the soles are stacked they will not adhere to one another.

The general purpose of the present invention is to provide a rack or carrier which will support soles and similar articles out of contact with each other in such a manner that they may at any time be gathered into a stack and removed. To this end, there is provided, in accordance with one feature of the present invention, a series of pairs of article-supports, the two members of each pair of supports being spaced apart so as to engage separated localities of the articles, and the supporting surfaces of each pair being inclined in the same direction. The articles may thus rest approximately side by side in inclined positions with the upwardly extending edge of 40 each article at a higher level than the downwardly extending edge of the succeeding article so that the operator, by a sweep of his hands through the space between the successive pairs of supports, may gather the articles into a stack and remove them.

This and other features of the invention, including certain details of construction and combinations of parts, will be described as embodied in an illustrated rack and pointed out in the appended claims.

Referring to the accompanying drawing:

Fig. 1 is a front elevation of a rack in which the present invention is embodied, said rack being supported by means of a suspension rod from the chains of a conveyor;

Fig. 2 is a section on the line IIII of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a detail principally in elevation showing more particularly how one end of one of the suspension rods is attached to one of the conveyor chains; and 5 Fig. 4 is an end elevation of therack.

The rack herein illustrated comprises two end members 1, 9 connected by a base, said base comprising two parallel bars ll, [3 fastened to the lower portions of the end members by screw bolts l5 and screws Hi. The bar I3 has an upturned flange having formed in its upper edge a row of saw-teeth ll upon the upper surfaces of each of which a locality near the heel end'of a sole I00 is adapted'to rest. The other bar' H is provided with two parallel upturned flanges having formed respectively in their upper edges a row of saw-teeth 25 and a row of saw-teeth 21. The saw-teeth all have the same outline and are arranged at a relatively flat angle; and each tooth of the row I! is in register with a tooth in the row of teeth 25, as well as with a tooth in the row of teeth 21. Since the purpose of the row 21 is merely to provide for long soles, this row will be disregarded for the moment, attention being directed to the rows of teeth I! and 25. These two rows of teeth, upon which a sole I00 may be supported in the manner indicated in the figures with one locality resting on a tooth I! and another locality on a tooth 25, may be regarded as 00 providing a series of pairs of article-supports, each pair being made up of the supporting surface of one tooth of the row of teeth I! and the supporting surface of one tooth of the row of teeth 25 which is in register with the first-named tooth. There are thus two rows of articlesupports, the two members of each pair being spaced apart so as to engage an article at separated localities, the supporting surfaces of each pair being inclined in the same direction. 40

Soles I00, the margins of which have been coated with cement 200, are placed upon the rack in the manner illustrated in the figures wherein it will be seen that the upwardly extending edge of each sole is out of contact with and that its widest portion overhangs the downwardly extending edge of the next succeeding sole. When now the cement coatings have dried the operator, by a sweep of his hand or hands between the bars, may gather the soles quickly and readily into a stack and remove them. It will be noted from Fig, 2 that the axis of the comparatively short sole there shown is approximately at right angles to the two rows of teeth I1 and 25, being engaged on its edge near the heel end by the upright face of a tooth I1, and being engaged on its edge near the ball line by the upright face of a tooth 25. The extra row of teeth 21 is provided to ensure that long soles will also be held with their axes approximately at right angles to the rows of teeth, the upright faces of the teeth 21 serving to engage the edges of long soles near their ball lines.

In order to permit the rack to be suspended from a conveyor, each end member of the rack is provided at its upper end with a split bearing including a bearing cap 29 fastened by screw bolts 3|, in which bearing is rotatably mounted one end of a hollow suspension rod 33 which is prevented from endwise movement by cotter pins 35. Each end of each suspension rod 33 is flattened, and the flattened portion is riveted to a flange or tab 31 which is integral and projects from a link of the conveyor chain, one of which is shown at 39. Such a conveyor, comprising twoohains carrying a series of rods each having suspended from it a rack, may be driven in any desired manner. For example, the conveyor may be driven intermittently through a distance equal to the distance between the racks, one complete cycle of movement of the conveyor providing an interval suflicient to dry a cement-coated sole. In such case an operator at a loading and removing station may gather up the dry soles from each rack as said rack reaches that station and fill the rack with freshly cemented soles.

Although the invention has been set forth as embodied in a particular device, it should be understood that the invention is not limited in the scope of its application to the particular device which has been shown and described.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent of the United States is: r

1. A rack for soles comprising a base, three spaced bars carried thereby, each bar being provided with a row of saw-teeth, each tooth in any given row registering with a tooth in each of the other two rows, the teeth of one row being adapted to support a sole by engaging the sole in the locality of the heel breast line, the other two rows being nearer to each other than they are to the said one row and being adapted respectively to engage short soles and long soles in the locality of the ball line.

2. A rack for use in drying cement-coated soles of shoes and adapted to permit the soles to be gathered into a stack, said rack comprising a base and two spaced bars carried thereby, each bar having formed in its upper edge a row of saw teeth arranged at a relatively flat angle, each tooth of one row being in register with a tooth of the other row, said series of registering pairs of teeth being adapted to support a series of soles with one tooth engaging the sole near its ball line and the other engaging the sole near its heel breast line, the planes of the teeth being inclined all in the same general direction to a plane which includes the apices of the teeth, the teeth being of a width less than that of the widest parts of the soles so that a portion of each sole overhangs a portion of an adjacent sole and with a space between the bars and beneath the teeth suflicient to permit an operator by a sweep of his hand between the bars to gather the soles into a stack.

HARRY GINGELL. 

